Day 26: Sunday, March 16, Nelson

All of Picton. Picton is the jumping off point for the North vs. South Islands. This gives you a scale of how big towns are on the South Island.

Today we went to church at Nelson CRC. It was a medium-sized church by NZ standards and had 60 or so people. We once again saw the Smiths at church. After the service I talked for a while with a son who works on avionics in the NZ Air Force. I didn’t recognize the names of the new helicopters he said the NZAF is going to acquire and he said they are European. He repeated something that I had heard several other places but discounted, which is that NZ is in the doghouse with the U.S. after declaring its nuclear-free policy and consequently excluding U.S. ships and planes from NZ. He added that the NZAF had a deal to replace its aging Skyhawk airplanes with F-16s. They were, in Al’s words, “painted in NZ colors” when the Labour party came to power in an election and scrapped the deal. That was probably a US$1B+ deal that went down the tubes. NZ mothballed its Skyhawks anyway, and now NZ has no fighter aircraft. It only flies helicopters and fixed-wing transports and surveillance aircraft. The whole NZAF is only 2500 people, so I can excuse Kiwis for forgetting they have an AF.

I also asked him about his stereotype of Nelson. My eyes saw a movie-set town with flowers hanging from awnings, fountains in the roundabouts, and a beautiful beach and ocean beyond. However, they also saw a lot of teens through late 20’s loafing around on the streets or cruising the town in their souped-up cars. A row of bars took up one block of the edge of town. Al’s answer to my question is that “Nelson is the LA of New Zealand.” I should have asked him what he meant, but you can interpret it for yourself.

The Bluebridge Ferry swallowing RVs.

Afterward we drove to Picton and then took the ferry to the North Island, ending our night in a town called Upper Hutt (because of the Hutt Valley). I hope NZ truck drivers get paid well, because they deserve it. Their American counterparts can cruise in pretty straight lines over multilane freeways. Truck drivers here really have to work for their pay. I also noticed that there are no trucks here that are as long as our U.S. trucks. Instead, they are all short and articulated. I’m sure this is so that they can get around the sharp corners of the highways here.

Another trip to the grocery yielded a few more observations. They had a tiny package of cherries (I counted exactly 14) for $3.58 -- $22.99 per kilogram. I also saw “Texas muffins” in the bakery. There were lots of varieties and they were standard flavors, so I’m pretty sure they were labeled “Texas muffins” simply because they were big. As I looked for frozen vegetables I ran across the “Texas mix,” which includes corn, carrots, onion, peas, and red bell pepper (called red capsicum here).

Flip-flops are called jandals here.

When I first started driving in NZ I was confused by diamonds I saw painted on city streets. In Texas those would indicate an HOV lane, but everyone drives on them here. After a while I figured out that diamonds painted on the road indicate an upcoming “yield” situation. They are very common in cites because of the many pedestrian crossings.

If you have regular Big Mac cravings, McDonald's wants to reward you with a sticker. We have seen cars driving around with stickers that have the McDonald’s M and the words “Drive Thru VIP” underneath. These stickers are always in the lower corner of the front windshield on the driver’s side. We asked and found out that every month there is a special deal; if you go through a McD’s drive thru with this sticker you can get whatever the deal of the month is. It’s free advertising for McDonald’s and a good deal for the drivers, and I brought a couple back.

Here is a Maori phrase for you: ka mate koe i te kai hikareti = smoking kills. Maori and English are both official languages of the country, so government signs are frequently in both languages.